SAD 1/2011

Summary 1/2011

The first issue of this year is dominated by the complete summary and results of the annual critical survey which the Alfréd Radok Awards are based on. However, the issue still starts with a philosophical essay, entitled by its author Giorgio Agamben “Homo sacer. Sovereign Power and Pure Life”, translated and with a commentary by Miroslav Petříček. The following section “Celebration” is about festivals: Dana Silbiger-Sliuková in her reflection on operatic productions goes back to the Edinburgh Festival (“Porgy, Bess and Montezuma”), Josef Rubeš writes about the Cluj festival Interference 2010 (“Tales which Need No /?/ Trust”) and Zuzana Augustová deals with three productions from the Prague Festival of German Language Theatre 2010 (“Memory is All that Remains”). The section “Bohemia Gorgeous…” follows the Alfréd Radok Awards results as it returns to several productions and theatres that appeared frequently in the critical survey. Marek Lolok writes on Pitínský’s production of Karel Čapek’s Hordubal (“Hordubal at the Divadlo Na provázku”), Jakub Škorpil on Letters by V+W in the production of Viceníková and Mikulášek at the Brno Reduta (“Corresponding”), and Karel Král on two productions by Robert Wilson at the Prague National Theatre (“Ami Go Home! and The Nation to Itself Only” – q.v.). Two essays refer to Pražské komorní divadlo – Divadlo Komedie: Petr Christov writes about Pařízek’s production of Offending the Audience 2010 by Peter Handke, and Polívková’s production of Faith, Hope and Charity by Ödön von Horváth (“Teatrum Politicum Comediae”), and Lenka Dombrovská about David Jařab’s production Desires and Rebukes based on Arthur Schnitzler’s novella Rhapsody. One of this year’s fundamental themes is introduced by the section titled “…Myths of Mine”. Following Linda’s study “Forgeries Preceding Us” there are reviews of two productions inspired by the problematic figure of the Czech wartime president Emil Hácha: Vladimír Mikulka considers The Historical Monologue by Milada Součková, directed by J. A. Pitínský at the National Theatre, and Josef Dubec writes on the production of Dr. Emil Hácha at the Brno theatre Feste (“Would Hamlet Have a Beer with Hácha?”). Jana Machalická reviews Kolečko’s and Špinar’s rewriting of Euripides’s Medea, staged in A Studio Rubín (“Close Your Eyes, Sweetie!”) and Jiří Erml writes about the production by the trio Nebeský-Prachař-Fajt NoD Quijote (“An Abundance of Accomplished Wishes”). The text of the same name by Egon L. Tobiáš, which the show is based on, is also the play of this issue (all q.v.). In the closing section “Comedy Mix… and Comics” Hana Pavelková writes about London and Prague productions of The Power of Yes by David Hare (“Bankers and Playwright on Stage, Please”) and there is of course also the traditional “…Kaleidoscope…”, a comic strip by Hana Voříšková entitled They Delivered Windows, and the Comedy Mix, which this time is the first in a series dedicated to cabaret entertainers of old time Prague (F. J. Frankl: Ivan, domácí sluha a Plósrór).

The Alfréd Radok Awards  A total of 78 critics approached by the editorial staff of SAD magazine took part in the annual survey. Individual awards presented by The Alfréd Radok Awards Foundation are decided by simple sums of votes. The Production of the Year 2010 went to the theatre adaptation of Aki Kaurismäki’s movie The Man without a Past. It was directed by Miroslav Krobot and produced by the Dejvické divadlo, which was also this year’s winner in the Theatre of the Year category. David Novotný also won the Best Actor Award for the main role in this production. The critics awarded the Best Actress of the Year to Ivana Uhlířová for her performance in the main role of Elizabeth in the production Faith, Hope and Charity (directed by K. Polívková, Pražské komorní divadlo – Divadlo Komedie). The New Czech Play of the Year is Exoneration by Petr Zelenka, premiered in the Czech Republic at the Jihočeské divadlo in České Budějovice under the direction of Martin Glaser. The award for Stage Design of the Year went to Robert Wilson for Čapek’s The Makropulos Affair and Aleš Březina’s music for the same production was voted Music of the Year. Talent of the Year 2010 went to the director Štěpán Pácl. A part of the survey was also dedicated to a non-competitive category, The Greatest Foreign Theatre Experience, and it has two winners this year: the Kafkaesque Rattledanddisappeared by Viktor Bodó and András Vinnaie from Budapest’s Katona József Színház and the production of Lulu, based on both Wedekind and Berg and directed by David Marton in a collaboration between Staatsschauspiel Dresden and Schauspiel Hannover.

Ami Go Home! and The Nation to Itself Only In this essay Karel Král considers a pair of two productions staged by Robert Wilson at the Prague National Theatre. The title ironically refers to the verbiage of some Czech theatre critics, maintaining that we pay dearly for following a recipe of the old, weary American who only repeats his own rhetoric and does not understand us (or our, let’s say, Slavonic or Russian soul) at all, who doesn’t even want to understand and perhaps is not even able to do so. The author argues against this usually unfounded opinion, gathering evidence about Wilson’s distinctive and always thoroughgoing reading of the chosen material. According to this, the directing artist always chooses appropriate means – from his alphabet – but mainly he dutifully examines human characters, including national characters, shown on the stage. In Janáček’s Káťa Kabanová, a Russian spirit is demonstrated mainly in Káťa’s discrepant two-way desire for love and death which is a punishment for that kind of love. In the Makropulos Affair Wilson has detected in our characters features of Czech puppets, ridiculous, sentimental loudmouths and puppet tragedians.

NoD Quijote In his script Egon L. Tobiáš elaborates on the Quijotean legend according to himself. He projects into it some facts from the life of the Czech poet and graphic artist Bohuslav Reynek. His old NoD Quijote lives in a mansion with his wife and housekeeper Sancha. He spends her days plucking feathers and reading books, probably novels about knights whose deeds he constantly discusses. One day he leaves the kitchen where he has always sat and sets out on his knightly adventures. In short acts combining comedy with poetry (Reynek, Ernst Jandl and Friederike Mayröcker are quoted) we watch NoD Quijote’s expulsion from his “bookish paradise”, his dubbing as knight, and a series of “beatings” (mostly collisions with domestic animals) concluded by a fight with the knight Pelicula (Sancha in disguise) and Death. All this with the devoted helping hand of his down-to-earth wife, who beats NoD several times but nonetheless dons his abandoned knightly armour following his death. From the start the script was a collaboration of the director Jan Nebeský and the actor David Prachař who develop it further together with the actress Lucie Trmíková, drummer Pavel Fajt and guitarist Joe Karafiát in the production at Prague Experimental Space Roxy/NoD which gave its name to the title character. It is primarily Prachař who enhances the production with motion-dance creations and verbal improvisations. Fajt accompanies this all sitting on horseback – represented by the work of art and drum set in one piece. The director, actors, musicians and artists not only perform the text itself but they enhance it with their own, sometimes altogether independent plan.